Pinus longaeva
Pinus echinata
bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine
shortleaf pine
red-brown, shallowly to deeply fissured with thick, scaly, irregular, blocky ridges.
red-brown, scaly-plated, plates with evident resin pockets.
contorted, pendent;
twigs pale red-brown, aging gray to yellow-gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
spreading-ascending; 2-year-old branchlets slender (ca. 5mm or less), greenish brown to red-brown, often glaucous, aging red-brown to gray, roughened and cracking below leafy portion.
ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous.
ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.5–0.7(–1)cm, resinous.
mostly 5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–30 years, 1.5–3.5cm × 0.8–1.2mm, mostly connivent, deep yellow-green, with few resin splotches but often scurfy with pale scales, abaxial surface without median groove but with 2 subepidermal but evident resin bands, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened with stomates, margins entire or remotely and finely serrulate distally, apex bluntly acute to short-acuminate;
sheath ca. 1cm, soon forming rosette, shed early.
2(–3) per fascicle, spreading-ascending, persistent 3–5 years, (5–)7–11(–13)cm × ca. 1mm, straight, slightly twisted, gray- to yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex abruptly acute;
sheath 0.5–1(–1.5)cm, base persistent.
cylindro-ellipsoid, 7–10mm, purple-red.
cylindric, 15–20mm, yellow- to pale purple-green.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric with rounded base before opening, lance-cylindric to narrowly ovoid when open, 6–9.5cm, purple, aging red-brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses much thickened, sharply keeled;
umbo central, raised on low buttress, truncate to umbilicate, abruptly narrowed to slender but stiff, variable prickle 1–6mm, resin exudate pale.
cones maturing in 2 years, semipersistent, solitary or clustered, spreading, symmetric, lanceoloid or narrowly ovoid before opening, ovoid-conic when open, 4–6(–7)cm, red-brown, aging gray, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales lacking contrasting dark border on adaxial surfaces distally;
umbo central, with elongate to short, stout, sharp prickle.
=24.
Pinus longaeva
Pinus echinata
Pinus longaeva is considered by dendrochronologists to be the longest-lived tree. One tree was estimated to be 5000 years old.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Although Pinus echinata is highly valued for timber and pulpwood, it is afflicted by root rot. It hybridizes with P. taeda, the pine most commonly associated with it.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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